[doubtfulfungus]

My sister in law is an RN with a Home Health agency in rural South Dakota for almost 13 years now. Right away, she was put on salary because she worked a lot of overtime. She's worked this way for 10+ years, and has never taken sick leave but two times, is always the first one on the road and the last one to get home. She now gets two weeks paid vacation, is always the one that takes the on call, the after hours calls, and now another nurse who is on salary is ill for three weeks, so they added her patient load to my sister in law's. More than once she's had to see 16 patients in one 8 hour day. This did not include travel time, or any other time that she had to do to get these patients appropriate care. She asked to be taken off salary, because she is feeling very overloaded. The boss and her minions responded by telling her that they couldn't do that because it would overtime because she gets two weeks vacation pay per year. This was supposed to be a benefit. Her "bonus" that she gets was also threatened to be pulled.
So my question is if it is a benefit that a person has had, for a number of years... and the work has increased, is it legal to not pay an employee when the workload goes up to such an outrageous number is that legal? She leaves her house at 6:30 every am and does not get done until 6:00 at night, sometimes later and then cares for her children and then her self. She loves her job, is very loyal and does not want to give up her patients... but is there anything that can be done about this slippery business practice.

Another employee who has been there for 5 years was trying to get health insurance, but they are telling her she can't because she works only 38 hours a week and that's not considered full time, but when she has gotten the overtime, they use her vacation pay, against her too. They also told her holiday pay doesn't count as worked hours, or any of the vaction hours.

:confused:

[twinkiedooter]

I would strongly suggest calling the state's home nursing department and telling them about how this particular nurse is overworked and forced to see too many patients in one 8 hour day. I am sure that they will be more than happy to investigate this home health agency and fine them heavily for their unethical and illegal practices. If that were a hospital they could not get away with that sort of employee abuse.

[Fr_Chuck]

This is how salary works, When I was a engineer and manager, I normally worked 12 to 14 hour days and often worked 6 days a week. This is just management and being on salary

Benifets have to be given equally , so if they have other hourly employees, all of them would get the same benefit, if they have salary they would also get the same benefit.

Also you can't really have some employees as hourly and some as salary doing the same work, so they will either be hourly or they will be salary.

But if there are only a couple of people doing this job, it is normal for one to have to cover for the other. So when she takes off on her vacation the other nurse will have to cover for her also. It would not be out of hand to ask for some bonus for this extra work load.

[Wildsporty]

I saw some of the questions you had answered. Vacation and holiday pay do not count as worked hours because no work is being performed.

The insurance question is legal if the policy of the company says that a regular full time employee is more than 38 hours. Ours is 30 hours, but each company set their own policy and it could even be 40 hours to be a regular full time employee with benefits.

Vacation time is between the employee and the employer and not regulated by the government. Some state such as California do have laws regulating vacation time if it is given, especially upon termination.

Salaried employees are exempt from overtime and they are expected to work longer hours for the higher pay. The salaried exemption is based on the FLSA standards and has to do with job description and duties as well as the amount of pay per week. You can look the regulations up on the U.S. Department of Labor website under FLSA. If the job meets the exemption standards than it is an exempt job.

An employer can make an exempt job hourly, but he is not required to do so at all and if he does than he must make it hourly for each individual working that position so as to not discriminate against any one employee. Once the job is classified as exempt it is usually not changed back to hourly unless the pay or job duties change.

Yes sometimes salaried employees are overloaded when others go on vacation. We do have some salaried that never take their vacation and we don't know why, they just don't do it. Maybe when the other employee comes back your sister should take her earned vacation, than the other employee can cover for her and she can have some time off to rest from the extra work.

I usually work a regular schedule at my office of 6:30 A.M. to 5 P.M. If there is an audit or if it is tax time than I work into the night and on weekends. Some jobs are just demanding, I just deal with it and I use my vacation time I have coming.

Shirley